Tips & Tricks: Beating Gears & Wind-Ups

After YCS Austin, Billy made an article about how to beat Frog Monarchs on ARG. If you took nothing else from it, the lesson should be not to press. Monarchs are like a Chinese finger trap. The more aggressive you are in your approach, the less likely you are to escape. If what Billy said really sunk in, then you should have had a significant improvement in your results. Funny how one small modification in one’s approach can yield such a dramatic change. But often times people don’t get enough practice against rogue decks to be able to play against them properly, so they miss out on basic concepts that often make the wins come easy for the rogue duelist. In this article, I’m going to discuss some quick tips for beating some other rogue decks that have had some success so far this format. The first is the deck I piloted to the Top 16 of YCS Austin:

Geargia

Fire Fist is probably the deck’s worst matchup. Why? Nope, it’s actually not Bear! He’s definitely a strong contributor but it’s the fact that even the weakest monsters in Fire Fist are threats to Geargia. Gene-Warped Warwolf’s 2,000 attack is a real problem. If you read my last article, you’ll remember that field presence is extremely important. Although Warwolf attacking over Armor isn’t a minus, because I’m able to search for another Geargia monster, I lost my field presence. More so, I have to invest two cards into making a monster strong enough to get over Warwolf.

People don’t understand this, though, and always go out of their way to destroy the Armor before it can get a search, even if they could simply attack over it. That’s what makes Call of the Haunted so powerful in the deck. Marksman destroys Armor, they attack with Megalo for 2,400 welcome damage and then in the end phase I bring Armor back, flip him down and back up, search an Accelerator , summon it, make Utopia and attack over their monster for one card. Better yet, because I haven’t even normal summoned and I already have field presence, I can make an entire legion of synchros if I have another monster in my hand!

Patrick Hoban and I actually played one-another on the bubble at YCS Austin. I went first, set Armor and Call of the Haunted, and passed. He went Magician-Shark into Diamond Dire Wolf and Wind-Up Rabbit. He mistakenly used his DDW’s effect to destroy my Armor and attack direct for 2,000. The next turn I seized complete control. On the other hand, if he would have destroyed my Call of the Haunted? I might have lost the match. An Arsenal or Accel along with a Karakuri tuner doesn’t do anything for me if they’re both in my hand! Speaking of Wind-Ups,

Wind-Ups

The most valuable tip I can give you is not to waste your Mystical Space Typhoons!  Without Magician or Zenmaighty, they really only have one way to gain advantage: Wind-Up Factory. If you make sure they don’t have that, then you’ve got a pretty good chance at winning. Their only other win conditions outside of grinding away with Factory are (a) Rabbit beatdown or (b) a Volcasarus-Gaia play for massive damage.

Don’t assume just because they didn’t immediately activate Factory that they don’t have it, either. You have to be careful; sometimes they’ll try to trick you into wasting your Typhoons by setting just one backrow on their first turn. You’ll be tempted to Space it to push your play through. Sure, you might manage to get in a direct attack with Bear, but they have more backrows in hand, along with a Factory that they’re going to use to grind away at your resources! Do your best not to use your backrow removal on anything other than a Factory against them unless it’s absolutely necessary. When I was having this conversation with Steinman a while back, he said it perfectly: against Wind-Ups, the text for Mystical Space Tphoon should read “Destroy 1 face-up Wind-Up Factory your opponent controls.”

There are exceptions, of course. For example, last format, if my opponent went first, had Rabbit-Factory and already managed to net a +1 from Factory, then I wouldn’t bother to Typhoon their Factory. Instead, I would use it on their other backrows, play very aggressively and use my traps as if there were no tomorrow to keep their monsters off the board just long enough for me to finish their life point. But now? Wind-Ups so bad in terms of card economy without Wind-Up Factory that even if they’ve already gotten a plus off of it, it’s still worth getting rid of Factory to cut off what is essentially their life-line. Soon enough, that -1 will be mute.

If they have multiple Factory and you can’t get rid of both of them? That’s when you should consider aiming for their traps and trying to rush them. (On the other hand, a tip for Wind-Up players: if you have multiple Wind-Up Factories, odds are you are low on traps and this “rush” strategy might be your downfall. You can make sure your opponent doesn’t take this approach by only activating one Factory and trying to bait their MST with it, to keep them away from your traps.)

Of course, this means if you have Dust Tornado if your side deck, bring 1-2 of them in against Wind-Ups every time because getting rid of a Factory often times meaning ridding them of their win condition!

Summary

Against Geargia, aim for the backrows, and not the Armor, if you can simply attack over it, you’re much less likely to be punished by a Call of the Haunted. As for Wind-Ups, save your Mystical Space Typhoons for their Wind-Up Factories. In other words, know which Gear to stop and you can shut down the entire Factory! These small little tips should help improve your results against these decks drastically.

How about you? Have you ever played with or against a deck where everybody else always seems to have the wrong approach? What tips or tricks do you use?

Samuel